


For Varying Degrees of Tired

by alocalband



Series: TW Tumblr Ficlets [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Derek, Oblivious Stiles, Pining, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-13 18:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10519602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: “Please,Derek, please, I–“ Stiles chokes back the beginnings of tears and clutches harder at the sleeve of Derek’s jacket. He’s on his knees, having tripped in his scramble to get to Derek from the other side of the loft. “I love you, okay? And I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, I’ve been a coward about this whole thing, butI love you. And I know you love me too. Iknowyou do, and I need you not to leave like this,fuck,Derek,please don’t do this.”Derek stares down at him for a long time, heart clenched in his throat.And then he looks up at where the other Stiles is pursing his lips in a hard frown as he watches the scene.“It isn’t real?” Derek asks for the hundredth time since the other Stiles, therealStiles, showed up in this apparent dreamscape.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Also on Tumblr.](http://alocalband.tumblr.com/post/158724548515/a-very-long-time-ago-jennthereaper-and)

“ _Please,_ Derek, please, I–“ Stiles chokes back the beginnings of tears and clutches harder at the sleeve of Derek’s jacket. He’s on his knees, having tripped in his scramble to get to Derek from the other side of the loft. “I love you, okay? And I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, I’ve been a coward about this whole thing, but _I love you_. And I know you love me too. I _know_ you do, and I need you not to leave like this, _fuck,_ Derek, _please don’t do this_.”

Derek stares down at him for a long time, heart clenched in his throat.

And then he looks up at where the other Stiles is pursing his lips in a hard frown as he watches the scene.

“It isn’t real?” Derek asks for the hundredth time since the other Stiles, the _real_ Stiles, showed up in this apparent dreamscape.

Stiles shakes his head stiffly.

The Stiles on the floor is still pleading with him around tears, but the noises of his despair are starting to fade, as if Derek were now hearing him from a distance. Even his heartbeat, a sound that Derek has been clinging to as an anchor for what feels like forever, begins to disappear.

Derek swallows and steels himself against feeling anything more than determination to get through this newest mess.

“What now?” he asks, tone clinical and firm.

Stiles answers him in a similar tone, his expression betraying nothing about what’s going on in his own head. A far cry from the Stiles that Derek first met a couple years ago, terrified and mouthy and _young_. “Now you wake up.”

*

Reality is brighter than Derek remembers it. But maybe that’s just the month-long magic-induced coma talking.

Scott’s pack has been busy while he’s been asleep, tracking down Kate and taking her out, and then searching frantically for a way to reverse whatever spell she put Derek under without accidentally killing him.

In the end, it was simple.

In the end, it was Stiles.

Derek only catches a glimpse of him when he first wakes up, before Stiles mutters something to Scott and leaves Deaton’s clinic without looking back.

After that, Stiles’ absence is only noticeable in that it _shouldn’t_ be. After all, in reality the last time they stood in the other’s presence was well before the nogitsune.

A part of Derek misses him anyway. A side effect of having spent so long dreaming a reality in which they never left each other’s sides.

But it was just a dream, nothing close to the truth, and so Derek tries to put it out of his head. If that means avoiding Stiles just as much as Stiles avoids him, then so be it. Derek has suffered through worse, has been responsible for worse, and has never been deserving of any better. Despite what his comatose dreams tried to make him believe.

*

“Hey, are you okay?” Scott asks him about two weeks into this. Scott’s been very obviously treating Derek with kid gloves ever since the coma, “ _casually_ ” checking in on him every couple days like he’s afraid Derek will get kidnapped again if he doesn’t.

“I’m fine,” Derek says shortly, and doesn’t even fully realize that this is a lie until the words are out of his mouth and Scott is frowning at the stutter in his heartbeat.

Derek sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m… dealing with it.”

“Does that mean _actually_ dealing with it, or, like, dealing with it the way Stiles has been? Which is pretty much not at all.”

Derek’s eyes narrow at Stiles’ name. “So you’ve spoken to him about this. What–“ Derek swallows. “What did he tell you?”

“ _Nothing_ , unfortunately. Because he seems to think he’s just as impervious and just as alone in all this as you do. But you guys _aren’t alone,_ okay? And you aren’t impervious. And, I just… I’m here if you need me, man.”

“I know that,” Derek admits uncomfortably, but holds Scott’s gaze in what he hopes is a reassuring way. “And I appreciate it. I’m sure Stiles does too. But you really don’t need to worry about this. I’ve already moved on.”

This time he knows he’s lying when he does it. And Scott’s answering frown is filled with a lot more pity than not, but he doesn’t say anything more on the subject.

*

Stiles shows up on Derek’s doorstep a week later.

He looks like he’s been sleeping even less lately than the couple hours a night he already was. There are dark bruises under his eyes and he holds himself up like he’s only doing it out of habit.

Derek swallows back a concerned comment. It isn’t his place. Was never his place, no matter the confusion of remembering a false time when it was.

There’s a determined expression on Stiles’ face though, like he only made it out of his house and all the way to the loft out of sheer force of will. Like the only reason he’s standing in front of Derek right now is because he’s too stubborn to back down from… whatever this is. His hands clench into fists at his sides. “Listen, I thought I could just let it go, but I can’t.”

Derek braces himself for impact.

Stiles steps forward, his gaze steely. “That guy in your dream. That wasn’t me.”

Derek grits his teeth, jaw clenching painfully. “ _I know,”_ he manages to choke out, low and harsh.

“You say that, but your subconscious obviously has different ideas. And I am not that guy, Derek. I’m not. I get that you see me as this pathetic whatever, can’t even keep myself in check enough to keep the nogitsune out of my head, let alone to keep from getting my feelings all over you, but–”

“Wait.” Derek blinks. “What?”

“I disgust you, I get it, I mean you were already avoiding me before all of this, we barely saw each other after that night at the hospital with Ms. Blake, so I get that you wanted nothing to do with me once you figured it out, but… Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair aggressively, his whole body vibrating. “But it’s important to me that you know that _I am not that guy_. I would never shove myself on you like that and try to manipulate you like– like I could just dictate your feelings. No way. Fuck that. I would _never_ , man. I would _never violate–”_

“Stiles–” Derek tries to interrupt, but Stiles keeps barreling forward like he can’t help himself.

“You actually think that I– I mean I _know_ what shit like that would do to you, acting like I have the right to tell you how you should feel about me, and I _wouldn’t_ , I _swear_ I wouldn’t, I–”

“Stiles _stop.”_

Stiles abruptly seals his lips together and exhales roughly through his nose, looking like a caged bull ready for a fight. Looking like he thinks he _deserves_ a fight, and is desperate to prepare himself for it.

Derek closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath. “What you saw in my head, it… It wasn’t ever something I didn’t want. So you don’t have to worry about that, alright?” He opens his eyes and makes sure to meet Stile’s gaze with as much force behind his own as he’s ever felt. “So quit beating yourself up over things you can’t control. It wasn’t your fault that the nogitsune used you against your will. And it certainly isn’t your fault that I imagined a version of you that… that might love me.”

“I don’t understand. Are you… What are you saying?” his tone is hesitant and soft and completely at odds with the tight fists his hands are still making.

“What you saw in my dream, it had nothing to do with however _you_ might feel, and everything to do with how I do. I saw what I _wanted_ to see, Stiles. And it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to walk away from.”

Stiles draws in a sharp breath and holds it, eyes wide, and full of just as much shock as hope.

Derek takes a cautious step towards him. “I was never avoiding you because I figured out your feelings, whatever they might be. I was avoiding you because I figured out my own.”

“So, you… you _want_ me to throw myself at you?”

Derek fights, and spectacularly loses, against the small smile tugging at his lips. “Well. I’d be willing to meet you half way.”

Stiles’ answering smile is just as small and just as poorly fought back as he moves to propel himself forward, finally closing the distance between them…

“Shit. I can’t.” Only to fall back a step instead, letting himself hit the wall behind him hard enough to knock a small breath out of him. “I have had so many fantasies about this moment, Derek, but I… I can’t do it. Not right now. Not yet. I only just got my body back to myself, and my head was never even all that under my control to begin with. I am going to fuck everything up six ways to Sunday if I do what I really want to do right now.”

“Alright,” Derek says carefully, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “And what do you want to do, Stiles?”

“Uh, kiss you until we both pass out from lack of oxygen?”

The corner of Derek’s mouth involuntarily tugs up a bit. “I would not be opposed to that.”

Stiles laughs. “You’re not helping here.” He points an accusing finger at Derek, and then groans and runs his hand down his tired face. “God damn it, our timing is the worst.”

Derek would agree, and he purses his lips at the weary set of Stiles’ shoulders, the lack of life behind his unusually dim eyes. Stiles has been hanging on by a thread in the weeks since the nogitsune, forgoing any actual _dealing_ in favor of helping Scott find and cure Derek, and then in favor of worrying about what he’d seen in Derek’s head.

The last thing Stiles needs right now is some whirlwind romance. Which, Derek suspects, is exactly what they would immediately fall into, knowing them.

So Derek clears his throat and he straightens his posture and he is perfectly ready to choose the adult option. However painful it is. He’s used to pain. He’ll get over it eventually, like he always does.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is: “I’m willing to wait.”

Stiles does a double take. And then just openly stares at Derek like he’s trying to determine if he’s dreaming or not. 

Then he grins. And for just a moment, he doesn’t look so tired.

*

It’s a quiet thing, when it finally happens.

Over the past couple months, they’ve gotten into a routine. On nights when Scott can’t stay over at the Stilinski’s or the Sheriff is overwhelmed with work, Stiles heads to the loft.

They lend each other books and then sit on opposite ends of the couch, reading until one of them falls asleep. Until _Stiles_ falls asleep, which took a few weeks to happen at all. Now that it does, that sleep seems to go uninterrupted a little bit longer each time Derek sees him, and Derek’s heart has gotten progressively lighter along with that progress.

They talk sometimes, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes Stiles deviates from the routine and comes over early to do his homework. Sometimes Derek deviates and meets Scott and Stiles at the Stilinski’s, not because he’s really needed, but just to be there.

“Being there” seems to be the point. _They’re not alone in this_ , as Scott’s been trying to convince them both of for awhile. Proving that to themselves, and to each other, in these small and steady ways, is what’s ultimately done the most good for everyone.

Derek always knew he’d risk his life for Stiles. But it seems like an altogether different kind of trust to know now that he would also risk his day-to-day for him. That he would let himself grow comfortable with the consistency of Stiles’ presence. That he would give Stiles not just his life or his death, but his time and his attention. And that Stiles would give him the same in return.

“You look tired,” Stiles mumbles, half asleep, book abandoned in his lap.

Derek makes a soft noise of assent, because he _is_ tired, but he’ll never let himself fall asleep first. He sinks down into the cushions and rests his temple on the back of the couch so that he’s looking at Stiles.

Stiles rolls his head across his own couch cushion so that he’s looking back. “It’s a good tired though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. An ‘I like you so much I’d let my guard down around you’ tired.”

Derek huffs a small laugh, his eyes falling shut. “So not an ‘it’s three in the morning and I’ve been up since six’ tired, huh?” he asks through a smile.

“No,” Stiles whispers. “Definitely an ‘I like you’ tired.”

Before Derek can think to respond, there are warm lips pressed gently against his. A warm palm cradling his jaw. A warm body pressing tentatively into his side.

Derek opens his eyes and pulls away just enough to meet Stiles’ open and unwavering gaze.

“I’m the good kind of tired too, by the way,” Stiles says.

Derek brushes his thumbs across the apples of Stiles’ cheeks, just looking his fill for a moment. Stiles closes his eyes with a soft, contented sigh that Derek’s never heard before, but would do everything in his power to hear on a daily basis for the rest of his life.

He ducks forward and kisses Stiles again. And again. And then pulls him in close with both arms to fall asleep against each other.

It’s better than anything from Derek’s dreams. More difficult, certainly, and slower, and kind of terrifying, but also… a little miraculous, to be perfectly honest. 

But it feels earned. And it feels good. _Necessary_ , even. 

And very definitely real.


End file.
